Big hopes for hostage victim after operation

[LightYears]

Big hopes for hostage victim after operation

Kelly Ip
Friday, December 27, 2013

Manila hostage survivor Yik Siu-ling will have to wait another few months before she can finally take her mask off.

Yik remained stable in a Taiwan hospital yesterday after undergoing 11 hours of facial reconstructive surgery on Christmas Day. She is expected to be discharged next week but needs to stay on the island for a week more for monitoring.

Wei Fu-chan, who led the surgical team at the Chang Gung Hospital, said Yik's lower jaw needs four to six months of healing before she can be ready for dental implants.

After the implants she expects to take off her mask, which she always wears at home so as not to frighten her young son.

Wei said the extremely complicated surgery was successful.

"Her appearance is not the best yet, but this surgery has provided the basic requirement for us to improve her appearance in future," Wei said.

Yik has already undergone more than 30 operations and some of the tissues had atrophied in her lower jaw, Wei added.

"Since she has been infected during the previous operations, we cannot find a suitable blood vessel," Wei said. But he did not comment on whether Hong Kong doctors lack experience.

Taiwanese doctors said they initially could not proceed with the surgery because they had not received Yik's full medical record.

But a Princes of Wales Hospital spokesman said it provided Yik with seven CD-ROMs of X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging records going back to August 2010.

Wei also said Yik smiled after the surgery.

She told mainland newspapers she was happy to be able to chew solid food for the first time since 2010, when a dismissed Manila policeman shot eight Hongkongers dead on a tourist bus.

"[Yesterday] was my first time to chew a piece of chicken," she said. "Any difficulty can be overcome as long as you persist."